𝙱𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚔 𝚈𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚁𝚞𝚕𝚎𝚜 || c.ch × k.sw ||

[Fourty Fi.ve]

"wait- why? he's done nothing wrong." sunwoo tried his best to defend his teammate, but his efforts weren't enough.

juyeon felt a lump in his throat. it's true he didn't do anything that would qualify as cheating, not on purpose at least? what if he accidentally used a mod,, or- or he read the rules wrong and did something that wasn't allowed.

"if that's true then the sooner he comes with me, the sooner things can get resolved. but until then, the tournament will be delayed."

it was hard to stand up after being accused of such a thing, but juyeon desperately wanted things to be fixed. it was his only choice, but the arm wrapping around his made things so much harder.

eric held onto him, hoping that he could anchor him down somehow. hoping that it'd magically be enough to convince everyone that juyeon was innocent. it was silly, but he could think of nothing else to do.

"let us go with him." juyeon couldnt believe the words coming out of sunwoo's mouth. "you can question him separately or whatever but we want to go with him."

the staff member, clearly not in charge of the situation and only trying to follow directions, checked his watch. they really wanted to get to the bottom of things, because he let them come along without further persuasion.

-

"everything's going to be fine," eric comforted, "just a bump in the road."

they were heading towards the main office room, following the poor staff member that was instructed to go get them.

"wasn't sunwoo getting punched in the face already a bump in the road? how many more bumps are we going to go over." juyeon was irritated, but mostly because this was centered around him.

"probably a lot more, if we're being honest. look, put it this way. did you cheat or use mods?"

"no, of course not!"

"there we go! then we have nothing to worry about."

"except maybe we lose credibility after this. what if we get banned? or you guys lose fans, or-"

"okay negative nancy," sunwoo cut him off, "whatever happens is going to happen. regardless, we aren't going to blame you for any of it."

juyeon's hands kept fidgeting as they neared the doors. he could only think of the worst but he tried to take the members' words to heart. he wanted to feel better so he just nodded along to whatever they said. he was thankful for them.

the staff member then opened the door, promptly letting them walk inside. when they entered, however, they were surprised to see geonhak standing at the front desk, his team standing around him.

sunwoo, already seeing chanhee's ex-boyfriend in a negative light, jumped immediately into defensive mode.

"so us beating you guys automatically means we cheated, huh? can't handle losing so you start going after our teamma-"

"woah, woah! no this isn't what it looks like." geonhak backed away from sunwoo, hands in front of him.

"it looks like you guys are a bunch of sore losers who-"

"sunwoo, let them speak." changmin placed a hand on his shoulder, gently pulling him back.

he hesitated, but he would admit he acted pretty irrationally.

with a nod of approval, geonhak continued.

"as we were leaving, we overheard the staff talking about your situation. having just played against you guys, we thought we'd come in to see what was going on. we don't think you guys cheated at all! we would have noticed during the gameplay."

maybe chanhee's ex-boyfriend was good for something after all.

"so you're on our side? then who accused us of cheating."

"who do you think?"

as if on cue, the door of one of the rooms behind the main desk opened and out came a singular woojin. the rest of his team were nowhere to be found.

the sore area on sunwoo's cheek ached at the sight of him, or was it due to him clenching his jaw in anger? could be both.

"lee juyeon?"

"y-yes that's me." juyeon stepped forward as a man in a very snazzy suit called out for him.

"please step inside."

-

he felt as if he was being interrogated for a crime- which technically was kind of happening? if they considered cheating on a gaming tournament to be a crime.

the man sitting across from him was intimidating, and very old. he wouldn't have imagined someone of his age to be running gaming tournaments. but- who was he to judge?

"you are the newest member of theboyz, correct?"

"yes, sir." the only thing missing now were a bunch of wires connecting him to a polygraph machine.

"according to our data, you failed to submit a registration form upon entering the tournament. you technically played in place of sangyeon, however this isn't really considered cheating and can be fixed with some paperwork."

"oh? am- am i in the clear then?"

"is there a reason i should believe otherwise?"

juyeon heavily shook his head, "i didn't cheat, i swear on my team."

"you might not have cheated, but you sure did piss that 10x team off. they insisted there was some sort of foul play happening, especially that kim woojin."

"ah- so they were the ones that accused us. i thought they were disqualified though- after punching my friend in the face."

"they were, that kind of behavior isn't tolerated here. however, their case seemed almost convincing so we delayed the game to go through the recordings. we didn't find any suspicious activity, your team won fair and square."

juyeon could cry. the guilt of potentially ruining their chances of ever competing against was lifted off his shoulders.

this day felt like the longest day ever, he just wanted to go home.

"thank you so much, I'm sorry we caused trouble for everyone."

"don't be, just hurry back to your team so we can continue the games."

that's exactly what he did, not without a few tears of relief that he had been holding in.